I want to challenge WHY any search on Google doesn't give hardly a notice of the Steady State theory by contrast. Why, for instance is there such little notice for a theory that stood strong up to 1969?

Obviously others have learned to PURGE successfully this important logical link to the reasoning that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang. Yet, if this important matter has actually been successfully and utterly destroyed, why not apply this to "Holocaust Denial"?

Answer: Money, politics and media propaganda that serves a reason to keep some issues alive and purge others that those in power don't want you to notice.

I eat without fear of certain Death from The Tree of Knowledge because with wisdom, we may one day break free from its mortal curse.

Scott Mayers wrote:......I DON'T care, if that's what you actually believe. But the topic is questioning WHY a search engine would list this topic itself ABOVE all others, when this site is doing just that!! Duh?

The 'forum' here is a PARENT folder, not a sub-folder under 'conspiracy theories'. This is no different than Google placing it at its 'top'. It says that people find it more valid than it is.

That is not what this topic was about. I would expect this site, RODOH and Stormfront etc to be top of the search lists when the search is "did the Holocaust happen?".

The point is that on searching "did the hol" the top results are not about Holywood, holidays or anything else beginning with hol. They are about the Holocaust. Then the results are a majority of "no" it did not happen.

nickterry wrote:3. The history sub-forum here discusses "specifically targeted subtopics". This is how history is usually discussed - empirically, which means focusing on specific topics. There's little appetite for discussing the philosophical underpinnings of historical knowledge.

4. As you can observe, the history sub-forum has 375 topics versus 1,110 in the Holocaust denial sub-forum. It should be really obvious why there's a separate forum here locally due to this imbalance. Who caused this imbalance? Hundreds of threads were started by a very small number of Holocaust deniers. Hundreds more have been started by their opponents.

5. Your both-sides-ism is banal and confused. You haven't been following these discussions closely enough to realise that members who post in this sub-forum spend a lot of time discussing the Holocaust as history, without interference from deniers. Increasingly the members do more of this than they spend time arguing with deniers. The members have been brought here by their interest in understanding or combating denial, but also all have an interest in the conventional history. . . .

Ok, as for me, I am interested in the history of the Third Reich and the Final Solution because of my interest in twentieth-century history in general. I came to this "subtopic," having focused on the 1930s and 1940s in my graduate work (which had a US focus), in large part because explanatory models prevalent at the time - when models prioritizing economics and class were dominant - didn't IMO serve events in Europe and especially Germany well. An obscure book on the Comintern and its views of fascism brought this issue home to me, so, despite my own focus on US history, I began reading in Weimar and Third Reich history; in this reading, the Final Solution loomed larger and larger. My contact with HD came from, years into this reading, an attempt to find resources for my continued reading, using the web. I was also hoping a forum where I could ask specific questions and explore topics of interest. Before I engaged with deniers, I read about and discussed the history of the Third Reich, and when the last denier stops posting on forums, I will still be studying these issues.

That said, every one of us has a different, personal angle on this history; that's what makes the discussions interesting - and attempts to rule some of these perspectives out (not scientific, for "Jewish Nationalism," lacking general philosophical perspectives, not conforming to someone's model of prejudice and abuse, not even-handed, and so on) are repulsive. The funny thing about this forum is that is proves the exact opposite of what this clown insists: as deniers post here less and less, dwindling to almost zero, the discussion of a variety of concerns about the history of the Third Reich continues apace - and without any supposed fixation on did it happen or not.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Scott Mayers wrote:I want to challenge WHY any search on Google doesn't give hardly a notice of the Steady State theory by contrast. Why, for instance is there such little notice for a theory that stood strong up to 1969?

Obviously others have learned to PURGE successfully this important logical link to the reasoning that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang. Yet, if this important matter has actually been successfully and utterly destroyed, why not apply this to "Holocaust Denial"?

Answer: Money, politics and media propaganda that serves a reason to keep some issues alive and purge others that those in power don't want you to notice.

I for once share your concern about the threat potential purges in our common knowledge associated with the "googlelization" of our "shared knowledge". This is why i mostly rely on books, and why my favorite "technological" tool is my dear kindle, and if not available, there are pretty good pdf libraries for books that have lost copyrights - in some case, Internet actually saved very interesting books from oblivion -

This to say that indeed any purges in historical knowledge is something that should be fought against, not promoted. And to purge "holocaust denial" would pose the threat of purging the "holocaust" as well.I am among the few who see positive consequences to "Holocaust denial", when it appeared and developed itself in the 1970's, as it also gave a boost to academic research on the subject - for those who seriously follow the historiography - and is still alive and kicking. Even after all these years, there are still loads of elements to be researched, reconsidered in some case, etc.

We have discussed - without agreement - some of those developments, potentially new thesis will follow, and we'll be discussing them too.What you call the influence of money, political considerations and media etc, has always existed, this is one of the reason we have historiography, and this is also why Historical research has developed specific methodologies and rules, in order to immune itself the best it could from those influence. Those rules and methods is what make History a science (even if only a "human science"). They guarantee that at the academic level you don't publish "opinions" but "thesis" (in the real sense of the term), which by definition are exposed to "refutations". No thesis hold the perfect truth, and their validity depend on how their resist "refutations"...

Nessie wrote:........That is not what this topic was about. I would expect this site, RODOH and Stormfront etc to be top of the search lists when the search is "did the Holocaust happen?".

The point is that on searching "did the hol" the top results are not about Holywood, holidays or anything else beginning with hol. They are about the Holocaust. Then the results are a majority of "no" it did not happen.

If I type in "did the Hol/hol" into the search box, a drop down appears and it is dominated by did the Holocaust happen options (plus one on the Holy Grail). If I ignore them and just return what I have typed, then I get a return similar to the one you link to.

Balsamo wrote:This is why i mostly rely on books, and why my favorite "technological" tool is my dear kindle, and if not available, there are pretty good pdf libraries for books that have lost copyrights - in some case, Internet actually saved very interesting books from oblivion -

I feel the same way. Technology enables me now to read anywhere, I also have a Kindle and I read on my phone, I have a Kindle App that I switch back and forth on. I will go to websites and look up documents but I feel safer starting with a book.

Balsamo wrote:I am among the few who see positive consequences to "Holocaust denial", when it appeared and developed itself in the 1970's, as it also gave a boost to academic research on the subject - for those who seriously follow the historiography - and is still alive and kicking. Even after all these years, there are still loads of elements to be researched, reconsidered in some case, etc.

I will agree that HD got academics out of stately chairs (and off their rears) to reexamine the Holocaust. It is why I'm against HD Laws, I feel it stifles speech and even stifles research. I'll give the Holocaust Handbooks this much, Mattogno and Graf copied documents and put them in their books so that you can see them for yourself...even if they misused and truncated them to make their point.

Yikes! I don't have a Kindle. I read many, many dead-tree things, none of them by deniers (I don't believe that there's a single printed thing in my home library by a denier). I find a great deal of primary-source documents on the web. I've built 100s of folders on my laptop on particular topics and subtopics, which have a mixture of downloaded documents, my own notes, and related PDFs of articles. I used to read denier stuff, found on the web, generally - by which I mean without specific goals, just to read what so-and-so wrote about some topic. For a number of years, given that time is limited and I don't much like the way deniers approach history, I've not read denier stuff in this way; rather, I read denier PDFs and articles now as part of a specific discussion, for a purpose. My overall feeling about denier material is that it fails to provide rich, layered interpretations of the material and how people experienced their lives during the period.

I have a different view of the usefulness of HD than you and Balasmo, I suppose. Copying documents, selectively, is hardly a major achievement, and while the accessibility of these documents may be nice for "us," scholars work in archives and for sure don't depend on anti-Semitic loons to make documents available.

I'd guess that my home library's close to 1000 books on Weimar, the Third Reich and Europe in this period (I've read by far most but not all of them) - in all this reading, I've not encountered much explicit or implicit engagement/dialogue with HD, nor have I seen the work/questions stagnating for lack of engagement with HD. The research focus, and the problems raised, come from elsewhere. In my reading I've seen scholars exploring what arises from their own research and from peer interactions about research. By contrast, HD is narrowly focused and "thin"; direct engagement with HD seems to narrow rather than open up lines of inquiry - and depressingly "empiricize" discussion, a trap we can sometimes be led into in forum debate. My interest in studying history is to inquire into how people experienced their lives, what they made of their experiences, and how groups of people related to one another. Generally, I've found very little of value personally in HD, certainly as little of value as I find in other "ideologized" tracts (say, Communist inspired accounts) and observe minimal benefit to academic discourse arising from HD.

HD laws haven't compromised serious study and consideration of the history. I am against these laws for political reasons, without thinking for a moment that they've constrained real historical inquiry. Scholars of this period, IMO, soldier on just fine without HD.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

I do read actual hard and soft cover books, I just enjoy the convenience of having it everywhere I go.

As far as HD, while I find it repugnant it exists so it needs to be discussed and combated. I read some of the "Handbooks" when I first started looking into the subject. I no longer read them, I found them ridiculous and the falsification or selective use of documents infuriated me. However, it did give me impetus to actually look the documents up myself to see the issues with them.

HD gave rise to Nizkor, Holocaust Controversies, The Holocaust History project and HDOT (among others.). For that I'm grateful, they also provide valuable resources for the public that otherwise wouldn't be available. So in a sense that's a positive, I want that free flow of information. I'm sorry that it took HD for that to happen but it encouraged others to jump in to combat the misinformation that HD spread.

Jeffk 1970 wrote:I do read actual hard and soft cover books, I just enjoy the convenience of having it everywhere I go.

As far as HD, while I find it repugnant it exists so it needs to be discussed and combated. I read some of the "Handbooks" when I first started looking into the subject. I no longer read them, I found them ridiculous and the falsification or selective use of documents infuriated me. However, it did give me impetus to actually look the documents up myself to see the issues with them.

HD gave rise to Nizkor, Holocaust Controversies, The Holocaust History project and HDOT (among others.). For that I'm grateful, they also provide valuable resources for the public that otherwise wouldn't be available. So in a sense that's a positive, I want that free flow of information. I'm sorry that it took HD for that to happen but it encouraged others to jump in to combat the misinformation that HD spread.

I've got nothing against Kindle - I take notes in books that I read, and I just haven't found that I can read and retain using a Kindle in the same way. I wish I could, actually!

On HD, I was referring to scholarship: it's pretty much a tautology to recognize that sites/groups debunking HD wouldn't have come into existence without HD. And, with due respect to the history of this forum, a LOT of the debunking stuff on the web, unlike the 4 sites you mention, is really poor - a great deal of crap is "out there" on account of HD, in that sense. To highlight something more middle of the road, Shermer's books pale beside the work of historians who study this period. I just find that the mainstream of academic work is by far most useful. My main point, though, is that without HD, the scholarship of the topic would be as strong and exciting as it is today - and, as a corollary, engagement with HD takes discussion away from the concerns I most value.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

I originally found my way here having become sceptical of many claims by the hifi industry regarding the sound quality benefits of all sorts of components down to what cable is used. My degree is Modern History with international Relations and so the Holocaust was something touched upon, but not studied. So I did something a bit different and got the vast majority of my knowledge from the denier side and much of my reading has been from the likes of Mattogno and Kues. Like the claims of the hifi cable makers, I wanted the denialists to evidence to me that what they claimed was true.

Actually, when i was mentioning the positive consequences of HD, i was not talking about their productions, but truly about the reactions: For example, it was because of Faurisson that a first international symposium was organized at La Sorbonne in 1982 to discuss the state of the research on the Holocaust, at that time still dominated by Intentionalists, under the `patronage than no less than Raymond Aron.Not only did this symposium reveal the gap in the research, but it basically marked the end of intentionalism, opening the way for a new generation, including Browning who had been invited.

The other point, which Scott Mayers persistently refuses to credit, is - as evidenced by what we post here as well as by what some of us have clarified about our motives/interest - we come at this topic from very different angles, with different interests and different baggage, so to speak. We have different levels of and sources for knowledge, we follow different methodologies. To the extent that some of us have studied history, we come from different schools of thought. We don't agree on political outlook, we have strong interpretive divergences, we aren't aligned on expectations, and even our taste in music varies. Contrary to Scott Mayers' musing, that's why in part we keep posting here - to wrestle with different perspectives, not to champion "Jewish Nationalism."

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Balsamo wrote:Actually, when i was mentioning the positive consequences of HD, i was not talking about their productions, but truly about the reactions: For example, it was because of Faurisson that a first international symposium was organized at La Sorbonne in 1982 to discuss the state of the research on the Holocaust, at that time still dominated by Intentionalists, under the `patronage than no less than Raymond Aron.Not only did this symposium reveal the gap in the research, but it basically marked the end of intentionalism, opening the way for a new generation, including Browning who had been invited.

This is how it had to be understood.

Those debates were happening anyway, since conferences were also being scheduled in the US, Israel, UK and West Germany well before 1982 and throughout this era. None of these countries had anything like the Faurisson affair, which provoked a more general intellectual response (Vidal-Naquet, Finkielkraut, Lyotard as well as private impacts on De Certeau and Ricoeur) in ways that were not as apparent in the Anglosphere. Hayden White's gloss on the Faurisson affair was only seriously discussed in the 1989 conference organised by Saul Friedlander. When the 1982 Sorbonne conference proceedings were published in 1985, they appeared at the same time as a shorter proceedings of a conference in Stuttgart that featured many of the same participants (eg Hilberg) and represented the growing dominance of German-language historiography.

The intentionalism-functionalism debate had already started with Broszat's critique of Irving and Browning's response to Broszat. Further responses to Irving from e.g. Gerald Fleming (in 1982 in German) continued this. It's striking how several contributions to L'Allemagne nazie et le genocide juif recycle material already published elsewhere; Browning's chapter is basically his responses to Broszat translated into French, with maybe a few new sources.

Kogon/Langbein/Rueckerl's collection on Nazi mass murder with poison gas was published in 1983 and was billed as an indirect response to HD; but this, too, synthesised work that was ongoing already, Arad contributed on the Reinhard camps and had already published an article in YVS before this date; he then published his full book in 1987. Discussions of T4 exploded in the 1980s in West Germany for entirely separate reasons. Et cetera.

Denial did stimulate the publication of more survivor memoirs in France as well as some of Klarsfeld's publicistic and document-gathering efforts, which eventually culminated in publishing Pressac's big book - one of the few overt responses to HD, as far as I am concerned.

Excellent point re: Pressac. I spaced on that. So my earlier comments need that caveat. Duh!

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

I smiled, as i was formed in a "Marxist school" - for all, nothing political in that- and i still think there are very relevant points.But my biggest influence is the famous "Ecole des annales", from Marc Bloch to Braudel, and their heirs. The constant need of progress, new tools, new reconsideration all this in a virtuous cycle...But there is no need to insist further, dear Scott probably knows nothing about them, just as he probably did not even understand your last post.

I smiled, as i was formed in a "Marxist school" - for all, nothing political in that- and i still think there are very relevant points.But my biggest influence is the famous "Ecole des annales", from Marc Bloch to Braudel, and their heirs. The constant need of progress, new tools, new reconsideration all this in a virtuous cycle...But there is no need to insist further, dear Scott probably knows nothing about them, just as he probably did not even understand your last post.

FYI the obscure book on the Comintern I referred to was by Nicos Poultanzas. And, yes, my department was heavily Marxist. The slavery guy was Eugene Genovese; labor, David Montgomery - both of these guys leaving for other universities; I liked them both. Maybe not well known outside US? One year a scholar in residence was EP Thompson. Feminist historians were just beginning to be important in the department, and their impact grew over time, until the department became a leading center for "women's history," but after my time.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

Balsamo wrote:Actually, when i was mentioning the positive consequences of HD, i was not talking about their productions, but truly about the reactions: For example, it was because of Faurisson that a first international symposium was organized at La Sorbonne in 1982 to discuss the state of the research on the Holocaust, at that time still dominated by Intentionalists, under the `patronage than no less than Raymond Aron.Not only did this symposium reveal the gap in the research, but it basically marked the end of intentionalism, opening the way for a new generation, including Browning who had been invited.

This is how it had to be understood.

Those debates were happening anyway, since conferences were also being scheduled in the US, Israel, UK and West Germany well before 1982 and throughout this era. None of these countries had anything like the Faurisson affair, which provoked a more general intellectual response (Vidal-Naquet, Finkielkraut, Lyotard as well as private impacts on De Certeau and Ricoeur) in ways that were not as apparent in the Anglosphere. Hayden White's gloss on the Faurisson affair was only seriously discussed in the 1989 conference organised by Saul Friedlander. When the 1982 Sorbonne conference proceedings were published in 1985, they appeared at the same time as a shorter proceedings of a conference in Stuttgart that featured many of the same participants (eg Hilberg) and represented the growing dominance of German-language historiography.

The intentionalism-functionalism debate had already started with Broszat's critique of Irving and Browning's response to Broszat. Further responses to Irving from e.g. Gerald Fleming (in 1982 in German) continued this. It's striking how several contributions to L'Allemagne nazie et le genocide juif recycle material already published elsewhere; Browning's chapter is basically his responses to Broszat translated into French, with maybe a few new sources.

Kogon/Langbein/Rueckerl's collection on Nazi mass murder with poison gas was published in 1983 and was billed as an indirect response to HD; but this, too, synthesised work that was ongoing already, Arad contributed on the Reinhard camps and had already published an article in YVS before this date; he then published his full book in 1987. Discussions of T4 exploded in the 1980s in West Germany for entirely separate reasons. Et cetera.

Denial did stimulate the publication of more survivor memoirs in France as well as some of Klarsfeld's publicistic and document-gathering efforts, which eventually culminated in publishing Pressac's big book - one of the few overt responses to HD, as far as I am concerned.

Another example of the different perceptions from different geographical areas Statmec was talking about.

You are right of course, the trend would have taken place anyway, as historical research always does.

But big controversies often give a boost, an acceleration to a pre-existent dynamic (that would have moved slower), West Germany had their own controversy, their "Historikerstreit".

I also remember a great correspondance between Broszat and Friedlander, btwOf course, the functionalist current already existed, but as far as i remember, their intervention at the Paris symposium was more than just symbolic. Of course, you know that my idiom is French, so in this perspective, for some reasons, the research on the Holocaust was not at the same level as in other countries, especially Germany where i was born, btw. In Belgium, the first real work on the Holocaust was thesis by a student, Maxime Steinberg...and that was what, late 70's early 80's or so?

I am not saying that all those works are a direct response to HD, that would make them too much honor, but that HD helped realizing the work that still had to be done. Again, the work would have been done anyway, sooner or later, but i feel it not only give a boost - when faced by the nasty questions posed by Deniers, it also helped - or at least this how i like to see it - new vocations in the fields, while that was not so evident at a time when memoralization was at full speed.

30 years ago, out of 132 students in first years, about 70 had to chose their fields after the two common years...IIRC, there were 3 who chose Antiquity, 12 Middle Age, we were maybe 18 for the Modern Times (XV-XVIII century), all the rest chose contemporary (1815-present). I can't remember if any of my promotion chose the Holocaust, but i can see that there are many Belgian Historians who actually do chose the Holocaust as their research field.

I am pretty sure that a controversies that would state...hum...well that "That Emperor Tiberius had a sexual relation with Jesus"... would boost the number of students willing to study Antiquity... Cynicism and Irony...but there is a part of truth in it anyway...

Of course, Preyssac is the perfect example, but it also shows that before his works no one even cared about how the whole process actually took place.

I'll leave it here, my daughter just came home from where she is studying.

Scott Mayers wrote:I want to challenge WHY any search on Google doesn't give hardly a notice of the Steady State theory by contrast. Why, for instance is there such little notice for a theory that stood strong up to 1969?

Obviously others have learned to PURGE successfully this important logical link to the reasoning that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang. Yet, if this important matter has actually been successfully and utterly destroyed, why not apply this to "Holocaust Denial"?

Answer: Money, politics and media propaganda that serves a reason to keep some issues alive and purge others that those in power don't want you to notice.

I for once share your concern about the threat potential purges in our common knowledge associated with the "googlelization" of our "shared knowledge". This is why i mostly rely on books, and why my favorite "technological" tool is my dear kindle, and if not available, there are pretty good pdf libraries for books that have lost copyrights - in some case, Internet actually saved very interesting books from oblivion -

This to say that indeed any purges in historical knowledge is something that should be fought against, not promoted. And to purge "holocaust denial" would pose the threat of purging the "holocaust" as well.I am among the few who see positive consequences to "Holocaust denial", when it appeared and developed itself in the 1970's, as it also gave a boost to academic research on the subject - for those who seriously follow the historiography - and is still alive and kicking. Even after all these years, there are still loads of elements to be researched, reconsidered in some case, etc.

We have discussed - without agreement - some of those developments, potentially new thesis will follow, and we'll be discussing them too.What you call the influence of money, political considerations and media etc, has always existed, this is one of the reason we have historiography, and this is also why Historical research has developed specific methodologies and rules, in order to immune itself the best it could from those influence. Those rules and methods is what make History a science (even if only a "human science"). They guarantee that at the academic level you don't publish "opinions" but "thesis" (in the real sense of the term), which by definition are exposed to "refutations". No thesis hold the perfect truth, and their validity depend on how their resist "refutations"...

Your link doesn't work for me (404 Error). As to when I put "Steady state theory" in, there are no doubt many lists. But you have to open up each one and you will notice that for all the top ones, they each at best have a trivial paragraph or two and they are biased to Big Bang supporters.

I also checked "Holocaust Denial" in Google and it comes up with only sites AGAINST this, not for it. But in third is "Google allows Holocaust denial results to remain at top of search query" as a sub-link search list (to forums everywhere). Google can target different searches for different people's uses too. They keep a record of your activity unless you opt out formally. (But who knows how accurate this is or to how you could still easily slip into accepting it again with a mere 'update' etc.

I eat without fear of certain Death from The Tree of Knowledge because with wisdom, we may one day break free from its mortal curse.

Matthew Ellard wrote:I call bull-shit. Show us your evidence that people in Canada do not reduce smoking, as the price goes up on a demand curve.

Scott Mayers wrote:I could. But being lazy at the moment, lets just think of this as such: ....

Scott, you complete moron, you were lying then"That is not so here"and still lying now.

Now piss off and go make up facts elsewhere in the forum.

From 1979 to 1991 real prices in Canada increased from $2.09 to $5.42 and smoking among 15 to 19year olds fell from 42 to 16 percent (see following chart). As the President of the Canadian TobaccoManufacturers Council then admitted to a legislative committee, “there is no question that consumption isdown measurably over the last five years, and there is no question that taxes have been asignificant factor.”

Matthew Ellard wrote:I call bull-shit. Show us your evidence that people in Canada do not reduce smoking, as the price goes up on a demand curve.

Scott Mayers wrote:I could. But being lazy at the moment, lets just think of this as such: ....

Scott, you complete moron, you were lying then"That is not so here"and still lying now.

Now piss off and go make up facts elsewhere in the forum.

From 1979 to 1991 real prices in Canada increased from $2.09 to $5.42 and smoking among 15 to 19year olds fell from 42 to 16 percent (see following chart). As the President of the Canadian TobaccoManufacturers Council then admitted to a legislative committee, “there is no question that consumption isdown measurably over the last five years, and there is no question that taxes have been asignificant factor.”

Who's quote is this? What quote is this referencing of some 'lie' I had fostered? Where is this 'lie' you speak of because this is NOT a quote of mine nor anything I commented on. My comments in that thread were about how treating sugar as a controlled and taxed substance like tobacco targets the poor in a discriminatory fashion by extorting those addicted there when they've got no options to turn to.

Social and economic factors influence a broad array of opportunities, exposures, decisions and behaviors that promote or threaten health. Although there are many factors contributing to predicted tobacco use, socioeconomic status is the single greatest predictor. Tobacco and poverty create a vicious cycle: low income people smoke more, suffer more, spend more, and die more from tobacco use.Low social-economic status populations include low-income individuals with less than 12 years of education, the medically underserved, the unemployed, and the working poor. They can also be prisoners, gays and lesbians, blue collar workers, and the mentally ill.

And I choose there NOT to require using Stats even for this because I was using pure reasoning to convey this. I don't OWE you obedience to your demands for some external homework you can do on your own.

I apologize to others for this unrelated topic digression. But it does PROVE how a problem of a 'social' emotional attitudes are interfering in the progress rather than dealing with critical thinking and science here.

I eat without fear of certain Death from The Tree of Knowledge because with wisdom, we may one day break free from its mortal curse.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

"As the President of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council then admitted to a legislative committee, “there is no question that consumption is down measurably over the last five years, and there is no question that taxes have been a significant factor.”

Hmmmm.....I'm pretty sure it is The President of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council. Let me know if you are still confused by this quote.

Scott Mayers wrote: What quote is this referencing of some 'lie' I had fostered?

No Scott. Your lie was fabricating the statement"That is not so here".when it was so. You simply lied.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

"As the President of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council then admitted to a legislative committee, “there is no question that consumption is down measurably over the last five years, and there is no question that taxes have been a significant factor.”

Hmmmm.....I'm pretty sure it is The President of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council. Let me know if you are still confused by this quote.

Scott Mayers wrote: What quote is this referencing of some 'lie' I had fostered?

No Scott. Your lie was fabricating the statement"That is not so here".when it was so. You simply lied.

Now you ARE being deliberately deceptive, Matthew.

The context of the discussion on the sugar thread was to the nature of any overall taxation on essential products that bias the poor and I argued that the way tobacco is taxed affects the poor as sugar would too if taxed. So I am asking you to treat me with respect and stop calling me some 'liar' as this entails some deliberate deception when I just showed you above links regarding this fact from the World Health Organization. Our Country would not normally present stats that show how the very governments are taxing with injustice against the poor, considering the bias against it is universal across all parties. So that you don't attempt to hide your own insincerity here, please source EVERYTHING you say of me with the particular link AND the exact quote in question.

Also, I'm allowed to say things of MY opinion of FACT in my own life and place. I don't require providing YOU with your demands of some statistic of irrelevance. I watch my local news and discuss things all over with this understanding shared by others here. Your clear behavior is to pounce on some irrelevant factor when my argument was to defend some assumption that taxing all people should help the poor of which some in that thread felt would benefit from that as it would, by THEIR claims (you, among them), that the poor WOULD quit drug-related vices through higher taxes.

And I quote with more force.

Tobacco and poverty have become linked in a vicious circle, through which tobacco exacerbates poverty and poverty is also associated with higher prevalence of tobacco use. Several studies from different parts of the world have shown that smoking and other forms of tobacco use are much higher among the poor. [World Health Organization, site source: http://www.who.int/tobacco/research/economics/rationale/poverty/en/]

"We've won the war on cigarette smoking" is a mantra among health-conscious middle and upper class Americans. But within the remarkable half-century long public health success story of declining overall rates of smoking is a disturbing subplot: Those still puffing away are a substantially more disadvantaged group than ever before.

I eat without fear of certain Death from The Tree of Knowledge because with wisdom, we may one day break free from its mortal curse.

But isn't "Google" itself a private company that has based its own integrity on posting what IS popular up front regardless of circumstances? My country's laws actually DO impose limits on Google's Searches here and why they even demanded a forced link to a Canadian censured and redirected link for our government's control. While you may think this is something Google or any such search engine should remove, it is just another justification for governments to step in and use to justify more strict controls on what we all see.

Also, Google tailors some searches based upon 'cookies' they place through your general online activity. I am NOT defending actions that some would forcefully promote and find it intolerant that my own searches now limit me from a lot of the world. I can't even use anything but Bing, Google, or Yahoo here including things like torrent sites here. You guys KEEP up the complaining on issues like this and it WILL be used as a justification by an apparent POPULAR demand to accept more censorships in all countries.

But I also pointed out how other political factors may be even creating false sites of the existence of deniers because it is in the interest of some people, like the State of Israel, to keep distracting attention that makes them looks as VICTIMS of more PRESENT abuses than actually exist. This IS a real phenomena just as Putin's potential on the recent election interference concerns.

I eat without fear of certain Death from The Tree of Knowledge because with wisdom, we may one day break free from its mortal curse.

The issues here get increasingly fascinating. According to yet another Grauniad item, search results from Google cross over into section 130 concerns already being addressed by the German government with respect to posts on Facebook and Twitter as well as uploads to YouTube in which illegal content (hate speech, HD) is displayed:

. . . While the debate in Germany has mostly focused on postings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, such law changes would also have wide-ranging consequences for the Google search engine.

Last Sunday, an Observer article pointed out that the top Google search result for the question “Did the Holocaust happen” linked to an article on a neo-Nazi website. While typing the same question in German into German Google does not yield this link, the first page of results still includes links to Holocaust-denial articles.

According to Christian Solmecke, a Cologne lawyer specialising in hate-speech offences, such statements are “unequivocally” covered by section 130, paragraph 3 of the German criminal code, which states that “whosoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism [...] in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.”

While Google does not have to seek out illegal content out of its own accord, it has to react to any complaint, whether by deletion or by blocking access, Solmecke said: “According to German law, a complaint would immediately oblige Google to delete such content and avoid a future repeat of such a violation”.

Unlike the three social media sites at the heart of the German government’s current investigation – Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned Youtube – the search engine itself does not offer a prominently displayed channel for lodging complaints, such as Facebook’s abuse button.

Proposed legislation in Germany would levy very heavy fines against Google and the other tech giants where such illegal content is not removed within 24 hours of complaints. Heretofore, the tech giants have not addressed the government's concerns with such content.

Starting here is where we've discussed, at length, the free speech issues related to HD in the past.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

FWIW this subforum, along with several others, is not indexed by Google or other search engines because the bots do not have access. Search engine bots devour a lot of bandwidth, so quite some time ago I restricted bot access to subforums that pertain to the main purpose of the site. I can look up the list if you want.

Pyrrho wrote:FWIW this subforum, along with several others, is not indexed by Google or other search engines because the bots do not have access. Search engine bots devour a lot of bandwidth, so quite some time ago I restricted bot access to subforums that pertain to the main purpose of the site. I can look up the list if you want.

probably for the best with this subforum

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

"As the President of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council then admitted to a legislative committee, “there is no question that consumption is down measurably over the last five years, and there is no question that taxes have been a significant factor.”

Matthew Ellard wrote:Hmmmm.....I'm pretty sure it is The President of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council. Let me know if you are still confused by this quote.

Scott Mayers wrote:Now you ARE being deliberately deceptive, Matthew.

No Scott. You directly lied and said that increasing the price of cigarettes did not reduce reduce consumption. You ran away when I asked you produce evidence for your obvious fabrication.

It'd be nice if more people wringing their hands about "fake news" devoted a few brain cells to figuring out why people lap it up so readily. Isn't the possibility that many millions of Americans place more trust in "news" generated by Macedonian teenagers as clickbait, or by Putinista trolls disseminating Russian propaganda, than they do in mainstream reporting and analysis a bit interesting? The rejection of authorities and experts needs better explanation than "those damned Russkies!"

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817

under top stories banner: 1 from Search Engine Land on Google search algorithm1 from Search Engine Roundtable on Google search algorithm1 from IBT on Google search algorithm

then the top three regular hits:Search Engine Land article linked to aboveStormfront "Top 10 reasons the Holocaust didn't happen"USHMM "Why Did the Holocaust Happen? A Leading Scholar on Eight Key ..."

These results do differ to results a week ago.

. . . I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. - John Keats, 1817